


Enough

by moonlit_verities



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, M/M, Minor violence mention, No Smut, POV Second Person, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining Sherlock, Pre-Slash, Repressed John, Rosie mention but she isn't a big focus, Set vaguely after tst and tld, The Final Problem doesn't exist, no Eurus, sherlock series 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-12 16:31:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11165718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlit_verities/pseuds/moonlit_verities
Summary: Alone.Funny how you used to think it protected you.





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> So I was thinking about Sherlock series 4 and feeling a bit melancholy and this just sort of happened. Unbeta'd so any mistakes are my own. First time posting anything on here and in this fandom so any feedback is appreciated.

His smile is tight and pinched.

He doesn’t call you brilliant or extraordinary anymore.

But he is here.

He is here and that’s enough.

That’s what you tell yourself.

It’s not like before. The wind whipping your hair, bitterly cold against adrenaline flushed cheeks. High on your own brilliance and the sound of his footfalls on the pavement beside you.

It’s quieter now. Deductions a little more cautious and words carefully chosen. Not because you care anymore than you did before about the outcome. At least not for your own sake.

Just for his sake.

For him.

Always for him.

One time at a crime scene the victim lies on the ground, her golden curls a shock of brilliant colour against the muted grey of the asphalt and fear grips your heart so tightly you wonder for a second if you’re having a heart attack. You pull yourself together, but it’s too late because he has already seen and everything stops for a moment and you swear you can almost see the unnatural blue lighting of the aquarium rippling across his cold expression as though it was that night all over again.

Your eyes are playing tricks on you and your brain catches up to that fact soon enough. Just the flashing blue lights of the response car, and the shot you heard was just Sergeant Donovan’s car door slamming.

Not that night. Not the aquarium. But your brain still panics that the tableau will stir images in his head and threaten to tear this all apart again.

He looks at you expectantly, they all do, as you fight the urge to hyperventilate.

 _Well?_ He says, as though a carbon copy of his ~~wife~~ ~~ex-wife~~ dead wife isn’t exsanguinating on the pavement.

A stiff nod and you’re back on track and nobody is aware of your little stumble.

Or if they are they don’t mention it.

You solve it without even leaving the crime scene and still, even though you know it’s not coming, you look to him expectantly.

_Brilliant. Fantastic. Just marvellous Sherlock._

It doesn’t come and even Lestrade has stopped being surprised by the lack of response. He coughs awkwardly and offers his thanks before scurrying into motion.

And he.

He just smiles; pinched and hollow.

But you tell yourself its fine.

It’s enough.

~~It’s more than you deserve.~~

He doesn’t come back to the flat for Chinese that night. You tell yourself it’s because he has a child to get home to, the babysitter will need paying. But you know it’s not that. Your earlier fears were founded. It may as well have been Mary on the asphalt, hair illuminated by the streetlight overhead like some sort of morbid halo. You wonder for a second if he saw you the same way when you were dead; some flawless otherworldly being. As though death somehow absolved you of being an arsehole.

Did he blame himself with the same conviction of which he laid upon you when she had died?

Useless, maudlin thoughts. Ella would not be impressed.

_You’ve been making such progress Sherlock._

 

It’s not like it used to be.

 

But the awful thing about hope is that it can’t be extinguished. Not once it sparks inside you, deep enough down that you can pretend you haven’t noticed it.

But you have.

And you do.

_Hope._

Sometimes, late at night, when the sounds of Mrs Hudson’s serials have stopped drifting up the stairwell and the traffic outside has slowed to an erratic, infrequent hum, you allow yourself to hope.

You hope and hope. So hard your heart hurts from it.

You think of his laugh, loud and unexpected when you tell him _now don’t lose your lunch but I’ve just realised that Mycroft is shagging someone and worse still I’m fairly certain it’s a woman._  
You think of his soft, pleased smile when you tell him about helping Mrs Hudson install a new cabinet in her laundry.  
You think of the lingering look he gives you when you finally get fed up with him needling you about The Woman and tell him without any shred of ambiguity _gay John, she’s gay and since it’s escaped your notice; I am too, so will you please let. this. go._

You think of all these tiny little things, unpack them all at once and then jumble them all together and hope so fiercely you can almost shut out the waspish voice in your head saying _don’t twist the facts to suit the theory._

Mostly it’s your own voice; after all your worst enemy has always been yourself. Sometimes it’s your brother. Cold and condescending; _I did warn you Sherlock._

 

It’s mostly ok.  
You get by.

 

One time you forget to eat nothing but a fig roll and a tepid cup of tea for four days and you pass out at the bottom of the stairs.

You come to several hours later, bones aching with cold and your own neglect and you trudge down the road to the chippy and order so much fish and chips that the lad behind the counter gives you a wary look, like he’s not sure if you’re having him on. You can’t really blame him; last time you were there you were drugged to the eyeballs and got into an argument with his co-worker about not wearing a hair net. You take the steaming bundle back to the flat and gorge yourself on chips until your stomach aches from it. Your phone pings and you ignore it. It’s just Mycroft, he wants to know if there’s a list.

There isn’t. You made a promise.

Never again.

But oh, if the needle doesn’t sing to you on nights like this.  
Nights where you feel so utterly alone.

It’s selfish really. To think of yourself as alone. You remember what it was like to be truly lonely and you think of Lestrade and Molly and Mrs Hudson and about what a disservice it is to them to consider yourself alone.  
But it’s just a feeling. And it can’t hurt them if you just keep it to yourself. That ache in your ribcage and the sick dread that sometimes threatens to swallow you whole isn’t their burden to bear.

You tell yourself it’s enough.

You tell yourself you don’t positively ache with the desire for him to move back in.

You tell yourself you’re lucky.

That after everything you put him through he still wants to give you the time of day. That after making him watch you jump from a building, manipulating him time and time again ~~even if you thought it was for the right reason~~ and letting his wife get shot, he still calls you his friend. That’s enough.

It has to be.

Because it’s all you’ll ever get.

Yes, hope comes snapping at your heels in the dark quiet nights when the fire is banked and you’re still buzzing from the high of his company, but reality does a good job of kicking it away.

Sometimes, when you’re feeling particularly self-destructive, you allow yourself to wonder.

What would have happened if Moriarty hadn’t forced your hand on the roof that day?  
Or what if you’d driven Mary off with the same enthusiasm you had with his previous girlfriends?  
Or what if you hadn’t convinced him to forgive her for shooting you?

What if instead of being _flattered by your interest_ you’d reached across the table and done something daring on that very first night?

You allow the what-ifs to destroy you some nights, and you read through his old blog posts and allow yourself to be consumed by your grief for the story you never got. One evening you are so disgusted with your own weakness that you hack in and delete that pathetic post you made about the wedding. It takes 3 weeks for John to even notice. When he does all he manages is _how on earth did you figure out the password, it was randomly generated_ and you don’t bother responding.

 

One night he can’t come along on a case and you pretend it doesn’t bother you.

You keep pretending when the perp shoves you up against the wall of the warehouse and beats your head against the brick until you see stars and your chin is wet with blood. You pretend you can hear his footsteps slapping on the pavement, a whoosh and a thump as he barrels into the suspect and gets a few good hits in before Lestrade and three officers come bursting through the door.

In reality it’s the slapping of your own heart beat you can hear violently clanging in your ears as you lay on the mildewy floor, vision slowly blacking in from the edges. The whoosh you hear is somehow related to the burning in your side but your thundering brain can’t make the connection.

 

He is mad.

When you come to 48 hours later it’s to the blinding white of a hospital room and his unimpressed expression.

You want to apologise but there is something in your throat.

There, in the hospital bed, you’re overcome with sheer panic. You jerk suddenly and vaguely register violent beeping coming from the machines beside you. You watch as his expression shifts into concern and almost involuntarily you’re weeping. Weeping and clawing at the tube down your throat and he is there and his mouth is moving but you can’t hear the calming tone as the nurse rushes in and fiddles with a dial and the last thing you see is him. Angry again and shouting at the nurse. The weight of his hand on your shoulder is the last sensation you register before the sedative kicks in.

The next time you come round its dark and you’re alone. The tube has been removed but the same feeling of panic from before threatens to engulf you again.

Alone.

Funny how you used to think it protected you.

You hear the rapid beeping of the machine beside you again and attempt to calm your heart rate before a nurse is alerted. You’re sobbing again and you wonder if you’re having some sort of reaction to a medication because you feel utterly ridiculous. But you can’t stop.

Tears continue to track down your face and that sick hollow loneliness that you’ve become so used to is squeezing at your insides.

You’re going to vomit.  
The only thing that stops you is the shock of the door opening and you realise you must have triggered the automatic alert response again.

But it’s not a nurse.

It’s John, face panicked as he barrels into the room, a crying toddler in one arm and a feeding bottle in the other and you both just stare at each other before you can’t help yourself- you’re suddenly laughing. Laughing and laughing, while he stands there dumbfounded, eyes narrowing suspiciously and lips hesitantly quirking, milk dribbling from the bottle he has forgotten he’s holding, Rosie crying and squirming.

It’s utterly ridiculous and you laugh at the absurdity of it all. Laugh and cry. It’s humiliating- just a massive rush of endorphins and adrenaline flooding your system. _Its humiliating_ , but you can’t muster the strength to care.

Eventually you register the sharp pain in your side and your head starts throbbing from the effort of it all and you quiet yourself. Your cheeks are wet but they have more colour in them than when they first brought you in.

For a moment you’re swept up in the feeling of nostalgia that comes with the unexpected giddiness of your outburst.

You feel a weight plonk down near your feet and see Rosie, content now as she sucks on her bottle, sitting up all by herself and watching you owlishly with red rimmed eyes. Fondness threatens to overwhelm you and you lean back and close your eyes momentarily.

You hear John potter around, checking your vitals, fiddling with the monitors. Murmuring softly to his daughter while he prods gently at your drip line.

You’re startled soon after by his hand on your arm and his voice, low and soothing, ghosting across your face. You open your eyes so suddenly that your head pounds and you can feel a deep flush creeping up your neck as you register the proximity of his face.

_Hey. It’s just me. You’re safe. I have a cool cloth. Can I?_

You don’t really understand what he is asking, the drugs have made you groggy, but you find yourself nodding anyway. He smiles at you, gently and with a softness you haven’t seen in a long time, and you feel tears threatening to spill again. You swallow them down as he reaches up and starts wiping your cheeks with a damp flannel.

You blink.

And blink.

And blink.

You’re expression must be bordering on ridiculous because you’re pulled out of your shock by Rosie giggling at you from the end of the bed. But John is wiping your face with such tenderness while his daughter sits and cackles at the foot of your bed and you almost can’t believe it.

You realise that it must have been serious this time. A close call.

You listen patiently as he runs through your injuries, stab wound to the left side of your abdomen, _he hit a major vessel; you lost 2 pints of blood._ Subconjunctival haemorrhaging consistent with repeated blunt force trauma to the back of the head _Sherlock they had to drill a hole through your skull to let the blood out._

You frown, realising the pressure on your head is bandages. Which means they probably had to-

_Figured it out have you? Sorry to break it to you, but until that grows back you’re going to look a little lopsided._

He’s smiling at you and this time its genuine, you smile back even though it pulls on your stiches and for a second, despite your current predicament, you are content.

You don’t miss the brief flicker of panic across his features before his expression slips back into a mask of neutrality.

But for the moment, you close your eyes and pretend. ~~And wonder if he’ll keep smiling warmly at you if you can continue to get yourself into life threatening situations.~~

Pretend that everything is the way it once was.

You’re in there for three weeks and sometime around day four he stops coming by as frequently. Practically you understand why; he has a job and a toddler to look after and the hospital stirs up unpleasant spectres of the past.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.  
But then, you’re starting to get used to that now.

You snap at the nurses and you’re aloof with Molly and Lestrade when they come to visit but it doesn’t draw him there more frequently. He stopped being your handler some time ago. You pretend not to notice the fact that, rather than annoyance or exasperation, Molly and Lestrade just look at you with sadness and pity in their eyes. It makes you feel utterly wretched and you’re thankful for the self-administered morphine pump that means you can send yourself off into oblivion when their concern becomes too hard to bear.

He stops by every third day with a cup of tea and a pastry from the bakery outside the hospital. He doesn’t wipe your face or fiddle with your monitors and there is something distant about his presence.

But you tell yourself it’s enough.

He is here and that’s enough.

The staff are getting sick of you and the nurse, no doubt aware of the fact that John is a doctor, suggests that your surgeon might think about signing you out early if there is someone who can keep an eye on you at home.

For a brief moment you entertain the fantasy of John staying at 221B with you, changing your dressings, helping you shower, making sure you eat properly and take your antibiotics.

You shake your head at her-

_No. There is no one._

Of course your brother could organise someone. But the thought of some stranger with their hands on you, staying in John’s bed, doling out tablets with a detached professionalism is abhorrent to you. So you endure the sterility of the blindingly white room and the nurse who talks too much and the patient in the room next door who decides to throw his bedpan at the wall every night at exactly 11:35pm.

It’s mostly ok.  
You get by.

Three weeks later you’re escorted back to Baker Street by one of Mycroft’s underlings. Mrs Hudson greets you at the door and fusses over you all the way up the stairs and you snap at her but there is no real venom in your voice. You allow her to make tea and to tuck a blanket around you as you fold onto the sofa, exhausted from the effort of the climb after being stuck in a bed for the better part of a month.

_No John then? Would have thought he might have got someone to cover for him at the clinic. Never you mind dear; I’m sure he’ll pop round later._

You feign having nodded off to avoid answering.

Sometime later he texts. Polite platitudes and a weak excuse for his absence.

You tell yourself it’s enough.

He thought of you and that’s enough.

Your wounds heal, your stitches come out, life sluggishly moves along. You’re not allowed on active cases for a while but Lestrade brings you some cold case files and Molly lets you borrow a few body parts from the morgue.

 

You find yourself anxious at the thought of John’s approaching birthday; occasions have a way of making people melancholy with longing for people who aren’t there to attend them. You hate parties and you loathe the thought of entertaining a host of people but you swallow the unpleasantness and organise a small gathering at 221B.

It’s just Molly, Mrs Hudson, Greg, and a few of the yarders that you know John is on friendly terms with. You pretend that everyone isn’t skirting around the Mary shaped hole in the room. John seems more at ease within the group and you attempt to ignore the bitter feeling you get from the thought that his usual veil of misery seems less apparent around people who aren’t you. You overhear a comment he makes to Hopkins and realise he has made the assumption that Mrs Hudson has organised the entire evening. The bitter feeling grows a little.

A little while later, after being thoroughly spoilt for attention all night, Rosie begins to fuss. It’s past her usual bed time and you panic briefly at John’s comment about needing to leave soon before you remember you prepared for this eventuality. You sweep in and scoop her up, offer to put her down for the night, you bought a cot for upstairs after all.

Silence descends and you feel your cheeks start to heat under the shocked gaze of Lestrade, Dimmock and John. Mrs Hudson, pointedly unfazed by your suggestion, tuts some affectionate platitude about the child and the conversation starts to resume around you again. John still stares though; as though you’ve just grown an extra head, and you pretend not to be hurt by his surprise. Cold hearted machine is the bed you’ve made for yourself and that is where you must lie. He frowns then, you can see him making his own deductions and eventually he seems to come to some sort of conclusion as he reaches for his daughter. He murmurs his thanks and you feel a little of that bitterness ebb away as you watch him leave the room.

You see Molly across the kitchen, she is giving you a look that’s far too knowing for your liking. You roll your eyes and hope that does enough to prevent her from coming over and speaking to you with a voice full of pity. You remember a time when you pitied her, found her admiration of you pathetic and worthy of scorn.

You’re the pathetic one now though.  
At least Molly Hooper had the courage to make a move.

Eventually people start making their excuses to leave, Mrs Hudson fusses with the dishes a bit before, finally, it’s just the two of you left. The silence stretches a little as he sits across from you in his chair and sips his scotch slowly. The embers from the dying fire seem to dance in his eyes and seeing him sitting there, with his recently cut hair and wearing a cable knit jumper, you allow yourself to be content with the teasing echoes of nostalgia for just a moment.

The warmth is shattered soon enough when he announces that he’ll just rouse Rosie and be on his way. You protest- the bed is made (you insisted Mrs Hudson put fresh sheets on this morning) and Rosie won’t be pleased. He pauses at the doorway and you entertain the thought that he is considering your plea. He shakes his head though, thanks you, and ascends the stairs.

Just like that you’re miserable again. You wonder how much longer the pair of you can continue, dancing circles around your misery and the conversations that are long overdue. You try to ignore your disappointment that he isn’t staying the night. You tell yourself that he came tonight and he even laughed at your deductions about the new lab tech and that’s enough.

The truth is though…

It will never be enough.

You think sometimes that, even if John moved back and starting looking at you with that easy affection from before and held you and kissed you and all your wildest dreams came true- it still wouldn’t be enough. You’ve become so used to wanting that maybe you don’t know how to be any other way.

And you do want him.  
_Oh_ how you want him.

You want him so fiercely that sometimes the strength of it scares you. Some nights your skin seems alight with the desire to feel his body on you, around you, inside you. You burn with the need to understand what makes his nerves dance and his breath quake, you want to know every intimate thing about him and you want to gift him that knowledge in return. It’s sentimental and dull and horribly clichéd but you want him to be the first, and only, person you allow to learn the intimacies of your body and your pleasure.

And love. You love him.

You love him so completely and with a conviction you never thought was possible. You’ve died for him, you’ve killed for him, you’ve gone all the way to hell and back for him and you’d do it all again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping him safe and happy.

You can’t remember the last time he seemed truly happy. Mary’s death did a good job of focusing John’s guilt into a shroud of misery that he seems reluctant to shed. Selfishly you long to be the source of that happiness again. You remember breathless laughter in the entryway of 221B, adrenaline laced confrontations, interrupted dates, arguing over the contents of the refrigerator, giggling at crime scenes, and you long to give that to him again. It's a foolish and seemingly impossible hope. But you hope all the same.

 

 _You don’t know that every time you suggest he moves back in it gets harder for him to think of a reason not to. You don't know that the terrors that still wake him at night are not made of aquariums and little old ladies with guns but of blood on flagstone and a pale wrist without a pulse, the sterile lighting of the morgue, fists that look like his fathers and an uncontrollable rage that terrifies him to his core. You don’t know that on these nights he paces his apartment and feels wrecked with guilt that, after everything that happened with Mary, he is still not over the trauma of your death or the violence he inflicted on you as some sort of emotional outlet for all that trauma. You think he carries the misery and guilt of a widower who almost cheated on their spouse. You don’t know that he_ wants _, just as much as you. That he longs for giggling at crime scenes and arguing over the sanitation level of the fridge and breathless adrenaline fuelled chases through London and that those wants are what fuels his guilt because he should be wanting his wife back more than any of that. You know he was ready to leave you for good that night in hospital when he brought you his cane, but you don't know it was because he couldn't live with what he'd done to you. You don't know it's that self-flagellation that keeps him from allowing himself to be happy in your presence again._

 

You know none of this. So you think of his hesitation in the doorway tonight, his laughter from before, you think of the last time someone mistook you for a couple and how he didn’t jump to correct them, you remember him counting Irene’s texts all those years ago, you think of Angelo's, and his stag night and you think that- for now..

It’s enough.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Considering writing a follow up from John's perspective but that will be a little trickier as I'm still trying to sort out my own headcanon surrounding John's actions, thoughts and motivations in series 4. Anyway- kudos and comments are greatly appreciated! Feel free to head over to my tumblr and talk to me there too @ [starlitsecrets](http://starlitsecrets.tumblr.com/) though fair warning I am a bit salty about series 4.


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